A.R.'s Blog

Well, I won NaNoWriMo with a grand total of 50,121 words. As I believe I said in my first blog post, it's almost impossible at this stage to know how it went. I happen to think I wrote some truly inspired parts, and some truly awful parts as well, and everything in between. I discovered plenty of gaps in my research, so the first thing to do will be to fill those in, and then hopefully sort out the parts where I was blagging the history... but not yet! Time to take a break.

So, now for something completely different. When I was a child, I acquired a copy of Michael Foreman's Christmas Treasury, sent to me because I did something for Young Writer magazine (I do not remember what). It's a lovely book in which Foreman himself has illustrated every piece of literature he has chosen. Ever since I got it, as a fan of Christmassy literature, I have often thought about what I would put in my own Christmas treasury - and now that I have started this blog, I intend to compile a list.

Every day from December 1st-24th, I will make a short blog post with the title of a piece of Christmas-related literature, a brief explanation of why I have chosen it and - if I can find everything - a brief quote from each.

It is an imaginary treasury, and as such, I image all the pieces in one volume - with copyright sorted out where necessary - and children/families/children-at-heart reading one piece each night in December until Christmas Eve. That's not how Michael Foreman did it - he has more pieces than twenty-four, and all of them pretty short - but I am not he, and that is what my Christmas treasury would be like. If it were real. I'd love to be a talented artist too, and illustrate my treasury as Foreman did,* but again that is going to have to be entirely imaginary. A bit sad? Maybe! ;)

*Mind you, a few of my picks come with illustrations that they can't do without, so mine wouldn't do anyway!